Radio Times

Cover of the first issue (28 September 1923)

The Radio Times was first issued on 28 September 1923[8] for the price of 2d, carrying details of programmes for six BBC wireless stations (2LO, 5IT, 2ZY, 5NO, 5WA and 5SC), newspapers at the time boycotted radio listings fearing that increased listenership might decrease their sales.[9] It included a 'Message to "listeners"' by the BBC's chairman, Lord Pease.[10]

Initially, The Radio Times was a combined enterprise between the British Broadcasting Company and the publisher George Newnes, who type-set, printed and distributed the magazine. In 1925 the BBC assumed full editorial control, but printing and distribution could not begin in-house until 1937.[11] The Radio Times established a reputation for using leading writers and illustrators, and the covers from the special editions are now collectable design classics. On 1 May 1927, The Radio Times received an experimental Braille edition was produced under the auspices of the National Institute for the Blind, its success led to a regular weekly Braille version starting publication costing one penny each.

Masthead from the 25 December 1931 edition, including the BBC's coat of arms with the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto nation"

Masthead from the 8 January 1937 edition, the first using the title 'Radio Times'

In 1928, The Radio Times announced a regular series of 'experimental television transmissions by the Baird process' for half an hour every morning. The launch of the first regular 405-line television service by the BBC was reflected with television listings in the Radio Times London edition of 23 October 1936.[11][12] Thus Radio Times became the first-ever television listings magazine in the world, initially only two pages in each edition were devoted to television, which ran from Monday to Saturday and off-air on Sundays.

From issue 693, with the cover date of 8 January 1937, the definitive article "The" was no longer used on the masthead after 14 years, and the magazine became simply called Radio Times. However on the same date, the magazine published a lavish photogravure supplement[13] and by September 1939, there were three pages of television listings.

Prior to the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, the BBC radio listings provided a National Programme for the whole in the United Kingdom, and the Regional Programme appeared in seven different versions (London, Midlands, North, West, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland), plus the Aberdeen and Stagshaw programmes each with a combination of national and regional were transmitted to the north east of Scotland and England respectively, before the two stations merged into an single service.

Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and television broadcasting ceased, radio listings continued throughout the war with a reduced service. As from 23 June 1944, just 18 days after D-Day, the Allied Expeditionary Forces edition carried details of all the programmes for the Home Service and General Forces Programme, but by the same year that paper rationing meant editions were only 20 pages of tiny print on thin paper, when the Radio Times expanded with regional editions were introduced from 29 July 1945 and television resumed once again on 7 June 1946.

From 18 January 1953 the television listings, which had been in the back of the magazine, were placed alongside the daily radio schedules and on 17 February 1957, the television listings were moved to a separate section at the front with radio listings relegated to the back, a day's listings was sometimes spread over up to three double-page spreads mixed with advertisements, but this format was phased out when independent publishers were allowed to publish television programme schedules:

On 4 August 1962, when Radio Times was again revamped, the Abram Games' masthead was replaced with one incorporating the words in the Clarendon typeface on the left, and the BBC / tv / Sound reversed out to the right; while the main change was the reduction of BBC radio listings for Home, Light and Third to a double-page spread brought down into size, it had been running at between 60 and 68 pages but the relaunched issue (two years earlier) contained only 52 pages.

On 6 September 1969, Radio Times is given a radical makeover as well as the front cover is surrounded by black border and italicses its masthead (in the Caslon typeface with swash capitals that remained until April 2001) was an attempt to emphasize the "R" for radio and "T" for television. In some changes for the new format saw the introduction of a weekly column previewing "this week's films", however the look of the magazine was initially at least became far more restrained less the white space between columns on headings, most significantly the "lifestyle" section (which covers motoring, gardening and cooking) and the crossword puzzle was completely dropped, while the highlights section on the right page is scrapped, but despite the new look, they switched the date format from "month-day-year" to "day-month-year" and ceases carrying cigarette advertisements after 46 years since its first published. Since Christmas 1969, a 14-day double-sized issue has been published each December containing listings for two weeks of programmes. Originally, this covered Christmas and New Year listings, but in some years these appear in separate editions, with the two-week period ending just before New Year.

On 1 September 1984, web-offset printing was used for the first time, and the magazine became brighter and more colourful, with newsprint and sheets of gravure is replaced by black ink and white paper, including the new film icon and "today at a glance" (on the right page) used for BBC television listings. Starting from 1986, Radio Times introduces the new family viewing policy warns BBC Television does not broadcast programmes before 9:00pm which it believes to be unsuitable for children after that time parents can be expected to share responsibility but some programmes may be appropriate for adult audiences.

On 17 December 1988, its popularity climaxed when the Christmas edition sold an astounding 11,220,666 copies, and the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest-selling edition of any British magazine in history.

From 2 June 1990, the entire magazine was published in colour for the first time which ended monochrome for over 67 years, the day's listings beginning with a single page of highlights that includes "at a glance", followed by the double-page spreads of BBC Television channels and BBC Radio stations (with BBC Local Radio at the end). On 16 February 1991 as the same date for the new BBC One and BBC Two station idents, the introduction of television logos started to cover all channels and also include the programme pages for ITV and Channel 4 illustrations where the billings of white space until the next 13 days, when the full complete listings on the four main channels and satellite television from 1 March.

Before the deregulation of television listings in 1991, the four weekly listings magazines were as follows:

• Radio Times carried programme listings for BBC radio and television channels as well as BBC Local Radio stations since 8 November 1967.
• The ITV-published magazine TV Times, launched on 22 September 1955 carried television programme listings for ITV, and Channel 4 from 2 November 1982. Prior to this, several of the regional ITV companies produced their own listings magazines for Look Westward (WTV), The Viewer (Tyne Tees/STV), TV Post (Ulster Television), Television Weekly (TWW/WWN/ITSWW/Harlech Television) and TV World (ATV/ABC) are published, before TV Times went national on 21 September 1968.
• Rupert Murdoch's publication TV Guide, launched on 19 March 1989 carrying the 28 pages of Astra satellite (1A) television listings for Sky Television channels (including Sky One, Sky News, Sky Movies, Eurosport, and from 15 December 1990, Sky Arts, The Movie Channel, The Power Station and The Sports Channel on the Marcopolo satellite which were added after the BSB's merger), MTV Europe, RTL Véronique (for English language programmes), Screensport, The Children's Channel, Lifestyle and a highlights of BBC, ITV and Channel 4 listings as well.[14]
• In the Republic of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann publishes the RTÉ Guide (formerly as the RTV Guide) launched on 1 December 1961 which offers detailed programme listings for RTÉ Television and RTÉ Radio channels, while early on listings were carried for BBC Northern Ireland but were later dropped in 1966 and only RTÉ programme listings were carried until 13 April 1991.

Today both publications carry listings for all major terrestrial, cable and satellite television channels in the United Kingdom and following deregulation, new listings magazines such as Mirror Group's TV Plus, IPC Media's What's on TV and Bauer Media Group's TV Quick (until 2010) began to be published.

While the major refresh on 31 August 1991, the four extra pages of satellite television listings and one page of highlights section were replaced by the number of satellite channels on the left in the daytime television listings with "at a glance" on the right to complete the set, then followed by evening's television listings. On 5 September 1992, Radio Times devoted two pages of satellite and cable channels to making up the six pages of television listings for a day:

During 1993, Radio Times had several programme listing pages have been recently altered:

• 1 January – the VideoPlus+ number codes to cover all the terrestrial and satellite television channels for the first time.
• 2 January – the new icon "film premiere" appears used for the terrestrial television listings, replacing the phrase "first showing on network television".
• 5 June – the radio listings is given a radical makeover with highlights on the right, including Virgin 1215, Classic FM and BBC World Service were added on each pages having previously used for the local radio section, and the television listing pages saw the introduction of the year of production detail for films added as well.
• 25 September – the daytime listings with "at a glance" is now on the right page, but however the advertisements were occupied on the left page, and also the channel logos reduced into horizontal bars in smaller size on adjacent columns used for terrestrial television listings.

Radio Times' design was refreshed on 3 September 1994 as the television listings had the day's name written vertically with "today's choices" replacing "at a glance" on the left of a page, while the major revamp on 25 September 1999 as well as the programme page headings were returned which also changed the "letters" section beginning on the front pages and primetime television listings from two narrow columns to one wide column, and lasted until 13 April 2001 (shortly before Easter), which saw the new masthead title with the BBC's corporated typeface Gill Sans (until the end of 2004) and the programme pages with eight pages of television listings reverted to having the day running across the top of the page horizontally.

On 26 November 2002, NTL and BBC Worldwide announced a major new agreement that will offer an exclusive and tailored edition of Radio Times to every customer across the United Kingdom for every week it will be delivered directly to subscribers' homes. The special NTL edition of Radio Times replaces the monthly Cable Guide, which ran from September 1986 to December 2002, will contain programme information for NTL channels (including all terrestrial channels) with Front Row's pay-per-view movies and events will also be included. Subscribers will be offered the first four weekly issues of the new title for the same price as the existing monthly magazine, will be delivered free to homes in time for the first programme week of 4 January 2003, both companies will actively and jointly market the new edition.

From 30 October 2004, the programme listings pages have been revamped with the regional variations is now at the bottom of daytime section as well as the same spread on the five main channels include BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV2 and ITV3 (launches on 1 November) now appear on digital/cable section on the right page and a "Kids' TV" section (that includes Nick Jr., CBeebies, CBBC and Disney Channel) in a single page on the left. On 22 May 2007, two extra pages of television listings per day were added as part of a slight tweak in the publication's format, bringing it up to ten pages of listings per day in total, or five double-page spreads: one page of highlights with daytime listings and regional variations, followed by two pages of evening's terrestrial television listings (with "at a glance" for nine digital channels until 2010), then six pages of listings for digital, satellite and cable channels.

Until 2009, the listings issued a warning phrase "contains strong language" used for BBC television programmes from 9:00pm during the hours of watershed restrictions.

The most sweeping change came into effect on 10 April 2010 as Radio Times went through a major overhaul with the two pages for latest reviews of highlights ("choices") that similar to TVTimes, while the daytime listings moved onto the evening section having the full day's output for the five main channels on one double-page spread to complete the set:

Other changes saw the evening listings start at 5.00pm rather than 6.30pm (sometimes earlier than 5.00pm for weekends, bank holidays, Easter, Christmas and New Year), the addition of electronic program guide numbers into the channel headers, and the inclusion of director and year of production details on all Film4 movies throughout the day. Following the closure of the BBC Three channel on 20 February 2016, Radio Times stated to include BBC Four in the main channels section with Channel 5 being relegated to the Freeview section pages, reverting back to its original four-channel format which had been used for that page between 1 March 1991 and 29 March 1997.

From 25 March 2020, Radio Times introduces the two new sections of podcasts and the six pages of streaming and various catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, Now TV, Disney+, BritBox, Netflix, Amazon Prime and UKTV Play.

There are several regional editions, which each contain different listings for regional programming. All editions of Radio Times carry variations for adjoining regions and local radio listings.

When the magazine was a BBC publication, the covers had a BBC bias (in 2005, 31 of the 51 issues had BBC-related covers). Most covers consist of a single side of glossy paper, however the magazine often uses double or triple-width covers that open out for large group photographs, while events such as Crufts or new series of popular programmes are marked by producing several different covers for collectors:

• On 10 December 1988, Alice Roberts won the Blue Peter Young Artists competition at the age of 15, with her picture and the presenters appeared on the front cover, now a familiar face as a television presenter on various science and history documentary programmes, is one of the regular co-presenters of BBC Two's geographical and environmental series Coast from 2005 to 2015.
• On 23 February 1991, Radio Times launches an new-improved format with the full details of ITV, Channel 4 and satellite television listings starting from 1 March, which bears the "If it's on... it's in" tagline, and also featured Arnold Schwarzenegger (of Terminator fame) appears on the front cover, focusing about the former Mr. Universe has successfully became the biggest film career in Hollywood.
• On 3 July 2004, an special issue for the 50th anniversary of BBC television news, as well as a fold-out front cover with BBC news teams (from left to right: Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce, Anna Ford, George Alagiah, Sophie Raworth, Dermot Murnaghan, Natasha Kaplinsky, Sian Williams, Darren Jordon and Moira Stuart) was photographed by Andy Earl, and also an accompanying special pull-out supplement within the centre pages.
• On 10 February 2007, the second series of Life on Mars, was marked by the Radio Times producing a mock-up of a 1973-style cover promoting the series, placed on page three of the magazine.
• On 5 May 2020, as Radio Times reaches its 5,000th edition with excellent lead articles from the support staff and workers of the National Health Service front line protecting the global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus disease) to saving millions of lives, and also granted this special cover showing the colours of the rainbow which uses acrylic paint in a plain white background.

Each year, the Radio Times celebrates those individuals and programmes that are featured on the cover at the Radio Times Covers Party, where framed oversized versions of the covers are presented.[21]

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is the most represented programme on the cover, appearing on 29 issues (with 35 separate covers due to multiples) in the 49 years since the programme began on 23 November 1963.[22]

The Radio Times for 30 April – 6 May 2005 covered both the return of the Daleks to Doctor Who and the forthcoming general election.

On 30 April 2005, a double-width cover was used to commemorate the return of the Daleks to Doctor Who and the forthcoming general election.[23] This cover recreated a scene from the 1964 Doctor Who serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth in which the Daleks were seen crossing Westminster Bridge, with the Houses of Parliament in the background. The cover text read "VOTE DALEK!" In a 2008 contest sponsored by the Periodical Publishers Association, this cover was voted the best British magazine cover of all time.[24]

• Radio Times Extra
• The Listener
• Radio Times's Most Powerful People
• Time Out
• TVTimes
• RTÉ Guide

• Tony Currie, The 'Radio Times' Story (2001. Kelly Publications) ISBN 1-903053-09-9
• David Driver, The Art of 'Radio Times': The First Sixty Years (1981)
• Martin Baker, Art of Radio Times: A Golden Age of British Illustration ISBN 978-1854441713

1. ^ It replaces the national and regional programmes on 1 September 1939 during the outbreak of the Second World War, and remained on air until 30 September 1967 as the station became BBC Radio 4.
2. ^ Television becomes available in Wales following the switching on from the Wenvoe transmitting station.
3. ^ Television becomes available in Northern Ireland on 1 May 1953 although initially from a temporary transmitter at Glencairn, brought into service in time for the Coronation of Elizabeth II.
4. ^ Renamed BBC TV on 8 October 1960 and later became BBC One on 20 April 1964.
5. ^ All these strands including the Third Programme, kept their separate identities (such as music, sports coverage and education) within BBC Radio 3 until 4 April 1970, when there was a further reorganisation following the introduction of the structural changes which had been outlined in the BBC document Broadcasting in the Seventies on 10 July 1969.
6. ^ The English administrative counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, the three ridings of Yorkshire and the three parts of Lincolnshire were abolished and replaced by the new counties of Cumbria, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Humberside and a single Lincolnshire during the actual 1974 re-organisation.
7. ^ Also known as TVTimes Magazine from 3 October 1981; rebranded back to its original TVTimes name on 6 October 1984.
8. ^ The BBC expects copies of the magazine will be available in Scotland, Northern Ireland and North of England on 16 April 1983, following the print workers in East Kilbride and near Bristol have returned to work.
9. ^ In earlier years, the BBC television listings were given phrases such as "a film series" used for imported programmes and "the feature film" was completely dropped from 1 September 1984.
10. ^ Named after the American magazine of the same name, which devoted to celebrities, television reviews and video releases. It became a monthly magazine from 1991, and it was later absorbed by Satellite TV Europe magazine in 1992.
11. ^ Between 1991 and 1993, Radio Times had several satellite and cable television channels have ceased broadcasting that includes The Power Station on 8 April 1991, The Comedy Channel on 30 September 1992, and Lifestyle on 24 January 1993.
12. ^ Replaced by Sky Sports on 20 April 1991.
13. ^ There is no edition of Radio Times in the Channel Islands as their listings were contained within the South West region, but Channel Television published its own listings magazine, the CTV Times (formerly Channel Viewer) until 25 October 1991.
14. ^ On 19 December 1992, the two adults-only services (Home Video Channel and The Adult Channel) as unsuitabled.
15. ^ Absorbed by Eurosport from 1 March 1993.
16. ^ The double-page spread of satellite and cable television listings section which is similar to various layouts from 5 September 1992 to 13 April 2001.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Radio Times.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Radio Times

• Official website
• BBC – History of the Radio Times
• Radio programme about cover art with gallery
• A selection of Vintage Radio Times covers
• BBC Genome - Radio Times listings from 1923 to 2009